Angry About Something Else

“Who cares about bringing the beauty in when all the inner rooms reek? It’s toast and it’s not toast and I can’t shrug it off because it’s the profanity of it, the desecrating of one made in the Image. I slam hands down on the table when I’d like to grab hold of his throat. Can I exchange the clay eyes shot red for the sacred seeing?” – Pg. 123

How many moments have I wasted on anger? Or moments when I wanted to throw the soap dish at my reflection and feel the satisfaction of breaking something? Too many. Anger became the pumping blood growing up, fueling the daily comings and goings, disguised behind cultivated smiles and fear; lots of fear. “Who cares about bringing beauty in when all the inner rooms reek?” says Ann.

“Don’t lean on the table.” She got angry. I leaned anyway, but all of my weight stayed in my legs. Only my hand rested on the repaired end of the old table. To them, it appeared as if I leaned, rebelling against their authority. I didn’t know why, then, that I did that knowing it wouldn’t matter that I said, “I’m not leaning.” I now know I was angry at everyone and everything; mostly angry at being an outsider.

““Where do you find happiness anymore?” I ache for the once-laughing child now struggling in his teens and the man-skin. He stares out the window, away, murmurs it to no one and anyone. “I think I am happy…when I am alone.” I ache toward him sitting by the window and I am mother searching child’s face and I crack…I brim…I fall…and the tears scald. Oh, son…so thirsty.” – Pg. 132

Anger makes the inner rooms reek. How many times have we gotten angry at something insignificant, but really the cause lays deep down in another place and in another unresolved time? We’re not really angry because our husband forgot to buy toilet paper. We’re not really impatient because someone didn’t jump quick enough at our orders. We’re angry at something else and taking it out on the poor dope caught in the crossfire. That person smarts from the words and those words leave marks. If I have ever done that to you, tell me at that time. Ask me, Why are you angry? And maybe you’ll find out it wasn’t you at all.

Tell me about a time that you took out your anger on your spouse, kids, or friend when it was someone or something else that made you angry; or an unresolved hurt.

4 thoughts on “Angry About Something Else”

Such truth! Actually, I was just thinking about anger yesterday while I was sitting on my back deck reading Proverbs. One of my regrets as a wife and mother is that I know there were too many times when I lashed out with angry words at my husband and children, when there was something else fueling my fire. As we mature physically, but more importantly, spiritually, we realize our foolishness. That’s why, several years ago, I marked this verse with stars around it in my Bible – “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” ~ Proverbs 12:18 Nikki, I pray for healing for you and all the things in your world that caused your anger in the past. But I want you to know that I can see from your blog just how much God is bringing His soothing balm into your life. The beauty is being brought into the inner rooms! Praising Him with you!

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In May, my husband and I traveled to Honduras with six other people for International Teams. It wasn’t an evangelism trip. Michelle Crotts runs a camp for disabled children. Teams usually bring supplies and money for supplies in order to improve the camp experience for the children, schools, and women who regularly use the camp.